Tuesday, 15 September 2015

BIRNAM WOOD ~ WARLORD EP

Question; What do you get if you mix the blues based heavy metal of Black Sabbath with the grooving on a riff stoner doom of Sleep?
Answer; Birnam Wood.

Birnam Wood are a four guys from Boston, Massachusetts who in 2014 released a killer, self titled, album packed full of heavy riff based stoner metal tinged with elements of both trad metal and psych. If it had not been for the albums late December release Birnam Wood (the album) would of almost certainly have made many peoples Best Of.. lists for that year. Well, bloggers, journalists and fans get those pens ready for this years lists because Birnam Wood (the band) have just released a new EP "Warlord".

"Warlord" continues Birnam Wood's story with four songs of absolutely essential stoner doom sprinkled with traces of psych, hard rock and good old metal. Heavily down tuned riffage combined with thick solid thunderous rhythms form a bedrock of deliciously addictive doom into which intricate and scintillating solos and licks are woven and over which are laid clean throaty vocals.
The bands sound has been described as the missing link between Sleep and Sabbath and no more is this evident than on the EP's longest track "Wizards Bleed" its dark eerie psych intro building until exploding into a series of differing time signatures and riffs, traditional metal grooves sitting side by side with those of a more stoner dynamic its vocals swinging between clean melodic and throaty bellow.
A good EP is not defined by one song though and "Two Ravens","The Forge" and title track "Warlord" all show the same levels of quality song writing and musicianship making this EP essential listening for anyone who likes their stoner/doom grooves dark intense but not overly brutal.
&lt;a href="http://birnamwood.bandcamp.com/album/warlord"&gt;Warlord by Birnam Wood&lt;/a&gt;

About Me

My name is Frazer (FDJ/Stonerking) and I am sole writer for stoner/doom and psych blog DESERT PSYCHLIST. I am not schooled in journalism, have no degrees and have very little knowledge of English grammer in fact I have no certificates of any description! The truth is I spent most of my formative school years not actually being there preferring instead to following bands around, going to gigs and travelling around the country to see my local football (soccer) team.

The reviews I write here are never going to be grammatically correct with punctuation in all the right places and nor will they be thought provoking and deep, sometimes they will not even make much sense to anyone other than myself but what they will be is from the heart. I want you the reader to feel the music that I love, share in my discoveries and in my disappointments and generally help me to promote the bands and the music that means so much to me. If you find something among these pages and posts that you like then follow the links and spend a few pennies supporting the artist. Lets give a little something back to those that give us so much.